Daniel and the horse
by Elizabeth Bartlett
Summary: It was one of those days.....Please R&R!


A/N: Here's a funny story about Daniel having an interesting day. For all intents and purposes, this is before they learn that Loki is an Asgard. Don't own the 'Four Horseman of the Apocalypse', 'Loki', or anything related to 'Stargate'. Please R&R!

Daniel woke with a feeling that something was terribly wrong. He quickly looked at his clock; 6:44.

"_That explains it._" He thought.

He had officially woken up sixteen minutes earlier then he was supposed to. To most people this would mean nothing. To Daniel, though, this meant something was off. Something somewhere in the universe wasn't right and it meant that Daniel was missing 16 minutes of sleep. This could throw his whole day into disarray. He thought maybe if he could stay in bed, and even pretend to be asleep, he could trick the universe into righting itself.

After twelve minutes of this he figured it was a futile gesture and got out of bed exactly four minutes too early. He looked around. He took note that he was on the left side of the bed.

Things were already getting worse.

He opened his dresser only to find that the drawers were completely unorganized. The pants were where the shirts should be, the shirts were where the underwear should be, the underwear was where the socks should be, and the socks were spread about all the drawers. This was rather upsetting so he quickly righted the dressers contents and grabbed some clean clothes.

He went into the bathroom to take his shower. He combed his hair and removed his clothes. When he was satisfied that he was completely naked, he stepped into the shower and turned the knob; nothing.

Daniel stood there for a moment before he realized that he had forgotten to pay the water bill. Going off-world so much, he lost track of when things were due if they weren't SGC-related.

He put on his clean clothes and went downstairs. There were 4 new messages on his machine. Coincidentally this was the exact number of messages Daniel did not feel like listening to. Besides that, they were surely all from the water company reminding him that they were shutting off his water, and Daniel felt that he needed no more reminders of that kind.

He flipped on his 12 inch black and white T.V. to watch the news. It appeared that things were not entirely right in the rest of the world either. The news anchors spoke of death, war, starvation, locust, and how all of them seemed to have stopped over night. In a seemingly unrelated story it was reported that 4 horses had been seen at all corners of the earth but were lacking any owners.

Disinterested, Daniel switched off the T.V. and poured his milk into a bowl of cereal. The milk fell smoothly into the bowl. This was not supposed to happen as the milk had become a bacterial penthouse and had been chunky for the last week (he _really_ needed to clean his refrigerator out). It was one thing to drink good milk that had soured, but Daniel was not prepared to bring himself to consume sour milk gone good.

Trying to ignore what had happened inside; he went out to his car. It shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did when he opened his garage door only to find a large horse standing next to his car. It wasn't an especially healthy looking horse either. His eyes were glassed over, and were crusted in puss, and some of his hair was falling off. With out saying a word Daniel shut the door and went back inside, thinking that today was defiantly not the day to go to work. He picked up his phone and dialed the SGC.

Jack picked up. "General O'Neill."

"Hey Jack. It's Daniel. I'm not coming in today."

"Why not?"

"Well Jack, there's a horse in my garage."

"I hate to tell you, but you've used all your sick days. Besides that, their's a large man in a very nice suit here to see you."

Daniel figured they were from the water company. "Tell them the check's in the mail." Of course the check wasn't in the mail. The check had not even been written. Daniel just figured that these words would satisfy any one in a nice suit who wanted to talk to him. "Oh, I'm still not coming in. Count it as one of next year's sick days." With that Daniel quickly hung up.

He decided that he needed a place to hide from the universe. His first thought was the closet under the stairs, too obvious. His second thought was the pantry, still too obvious. He thought about the cellar for a brief moment, but quickly brushed that thought away. Finally it came to him. The only place that he could hide from the universe was in the middle of the open. The most obvious spot he could think of, the couch.

"_Not even I would think to look there._" He thought as he crept into the living room and laid himself inconspicuously on the couch. Seconds after getting comfy the door bell rang. Daniel froze. If he stayed really still maybe it would go away.

He waited.

Nothing.

"Score one for me."

The door bell rang again.

"Dang, found me."

Daniel rolled off the couch and opened the door. Behind it stood a large man wearing a very nice suit.

"You must be from the water company."

"Not entirely." The mans voice crackled as he spoke, "Though I did tell your boss that."

So this was the man that Jack had mentioned. It puzzled Daniel how he had arrived here so quickly since the mountain was over a half an hour away, and he had only talked to Jack ten minutes ago. He figured though that a man in that big of a hurry must really want something, even if he wasn't from the water company.

"The check's in the mail." Daniel told him.

"Aside from the fact that its not, I'm not here for a check."

"What ever it is you want, I swear it's in the mail." Daniel was desperately trying to end the conversation as his couch was beckoning from the living room.

"You put a horse in the mail?"

Suddenly the couch quieted itself.

"You mean the horse that's in my garage."

"Yes."

"Who are you?"

"Pestilence." The man replied.

"As in the Pestilence of the four horsemen of the apocalypse?"

"That would be the one. Don't you ever check your answering machine? I've been trying to reach you, as I need him back."

At this point Daniel had effectively figured that either the man in the doorway was mad, or he was. He hadn't yet excluded the possibility that they were both mad, but he was hoping to.

"I'm sorry." Daniel said, not entirely knowing what he was saying, "You can't have it back." It was official. Daniel was the mad one.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You can't have the horse back, and that's final." Daniel tried to shut the door but Pestilence stuck his foot in the door.

The wood rotted around it.

"I don't think you understand. I need that horse back."

"I understand that. I also understand that if I give you that horse, it would mean Armageddon, and I'm just not in the mood for that right now. Besides that, in city law, Article III, subsection d, fourth sentence from the bottom, it specifically states that if a man leaves his horse in another mans garage for a fortnight or more, which it would appear you have, then that horse becomes the property of the owner of the garage, which is me."

"You made that up. I've read the law, and mentions nothing of horses or fortnights."

"Ok, fine, but the first point still applies."

"Not entirely. Remember your milk this morning?"

Daniel thought for a moment, "That was you?"

"More precisely that was the lack of me. I'm the one who normally makes it go bad."

"Well, I appreciate your lack of effort then. I shall remember to drink the milk next time it un-spoils." Daniel was sure he had enough of this conversation, but Pestilence persisted.

"I think you missed the point." Pestilence said with slight irritation, "With out our horses we have a hard time doing are work. Think about what you saw and the television this morning."

The stories of the morning's news replayed in Daniel's mind. "All that because you don't have your horse?"

"Well me and the other three horsemen. Although I'm sure they have gotten theirs back by now."

Daniel was lost in thought. "So wait, this was all your doing, or more properly, lack of doing, then was it you guys who messed up my dresser this morning?"

'No, that was Loki."

"Who?"

"The Norse god of mischief. He was the one who thought it would be funny to release our horses."

"I see. So, this would mean thought that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are actually constants, wouldn't it?"

"Well yeah." Pestilence replied. "Everyone knows that death is a constant, so why not the rest of us?"

"I guess that makes some amount of sense."

"So, can I have my horse back?"

"You know, why not?"

"Thank you. I'll make sure your milk never spoils again."

Pestilence ran around back and mounted his horse. Daniel watched them through the window; disappearing as they rode off. He shook his head as he watched.

"And he forgot to shut the garage door. I knew it was going to be a bad day."


End file.
